Summer Haven is an unincorporated community in southeast St. Johns County, Florida, United States, located just south of the Matanzas Inlet, on a narrow strip of land between a shallow marsh and the Atlantic Ocean.

Eventually the community attracted other well known people, including Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, Owen D. Young, and author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

[3][4] After severe nor’easters in 1962, Summer Haven was declared a disaster area, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed an 1,800-foot granite revetment along the northern portion.

After Hurricane Dora in 1964, the existing revetment, which fronts the majority of the upland development in the reach, was extended by an additional 1,070 linear feet.

The precedents set have the potential to direct public funding towards expensive, unrealistic projects, and away from coastal mitigation measures for less affluent communities.